On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Stu Weibel wrote:
> Jim'll, of Tatty bye fame writes:
> > after all its the people that are important, not the badge.
>
> In fact, the badge is important.
Not always. If it was, we'd have the Internet being looked after by the
ISO and not the IETF. Don't forget that the IETF was once just a bunch
of hackers who just happened to be working on DoD projects and related
protocols. The Governments of the time were still going round mandating
the OSI stuff. The IETF became an important standards body because the
right people were there, they produced the right stuff and they welcomed
all comers.
> People need to reach a certain comfort level before they commit
> themselves, their organizations, the time and energy of their staffs to
> a particular course.
Well, if UKOLN and OCLC are involved in the development of metadata then
that's some degree of comfort for the suits. Also don't forget that the
W3C and IEEE are involved in metadata as well so if we all join forces
then there's lots of well known names there. If W3C and IEEE do
something utterly different to what we've been doing and get lots of
people using it then it wouldn't matter if we had Her Majesty's seal of
approval; its running code that counts in the long run.
> Any success the metadata workshops have thus far achieved is the result
> of people-of-standing coming together around a kernal of ideas and
> agreeing that they are a reasonable starting point.
Agreed.
> But further progress requires adoption, and adoption requires the confidence
> of those who have not necessarily been a part of the discussion, and cannot
> validate the process and results of that discussion.
Yep.
> The need the imprimatur
> of an organization of standing--someone with a badge--is manifest.
Nope. Was CERN known for its network protocols? Or the University of
Minnesota? I don't think so. Still if some organisation with a nice
shiney badge does want take us under their wing, I'll be happy to go
along (as long as they don't want to do anything technically dodgy like
break HTML 2.0 :-) :-) ).
> As I've said, I have reservations about the IETF... I just don't see a better
> alternative. And with all due respect to my compatriot, Terry Allen, waiting
> for the end of the URN process reflects an optimism I do not share. (that is,
> I'd agree with him had he said something else :-).
I do agree with Terry; URNs are something that is really badly needed and I
don't think that the IETF waters should be muddied with our metadata at
this time. That's what helped bring the URI WG down in the first place
and its part of the reason why we still don't have URNs out there in
common usage today. So if we're are going to get a badge to wear, then
I'd rather it wasn't the IETF. A joint OCLC/UKOLN banner would be nice
though, hint, hint... :-)
Tatty bye,
Jim'll
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jon "Jim'll" Knight, Researcher, Sysop and General Dogsbody, Dept. Computer
Studies, Loughborough University of Technology, Leics., ENGLAND. LE11 3TU.
* I've found I now dream in Perl. More worryingly, I enjoy those dreams. *
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